


I'm Going to Show You Pain

by TJade



Series: Ceallach [1]
Category: Spies In Disguise (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23999068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TJade/pseuds/TJade
Summary: Sterling didn’t recognize Keller.Of course he didn’t.  The man likely wouldn’t recognize most of the people at his own agency if he saw them on the street.  Why would he recognize some random person he’d met briefly ten years ago?  He’d probably forgotten Ceallach Keller ever existed.She flexed the fingers on her false arm, squeezing them tighter around his throat, leaning in close as Sterling choked.“I’m going to show you pain,” she hissed, letting her eyes roll back in her head, “that you can’t imagine.”
Series: Ceallach [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1730674
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

Sterling didn’t recognize Keller.

Of course he didn’t. The man likely wouldn’t recognize most of the people at his own agency if he saw them on the street. Why would he recognize some random person he’d met briefly ten years ago? He’d probably forgotten Ceallach Keller ever existed.

She flexed the fingers on her false arm, squeezing them tighter around his throat, leaning in close as Sterling choked.

“I’m going to show you _pain_ ,” she hissed, letting her eyes roll back in her head, “that you can’t _imagine_.”

She felt a shock and released him, stumbling back. She glimpsed the electric eel slithering away out the corner of her eye, and saw the other eel straightening his tie as he caught his breath.

She left him surrounded by yakuza, all with their blades at the ready. If the crew had been with her, they might’ve taken bets on how many of the poor saps would survive.

Of course, the crew hadn’t been with her, not for ten years.

When he leapt through the helicopter, angling himself so that he could smirk at her while patting the briefcase, she glared at him, unable to keep a spark of irritation flaring up even though she knew he didn’t really have the drone. He was just so _smug._ The perfect picture of a dashing action hero, handsome, charismatic, clever, heedless of the devastation in his wake.

And she was so well-suited to play the villain, wasn’t she? A terrorist, thought dead but in reality terribly damaged, fixated on bringing down the one who’d destroyed her. Just one more rogue to add to Sterling’s gallery. Another bad guy for him to hit and hit and hit until she couldn’t get back up.

Ceallach had heard once that everyone was the hero of their own story. Lance Sterling was certainly the hero of his, but she doubted that there were any heroes in her tale. Ceallach held no illusions about herself. Perhaps she was a victim, by definition of the word, but she was no pure-hearted martyr. She had and would inflict pain without regret. Did those she hurt deserve it? Not necessarily, but it had been a while since that had mattered.

Some part of her wondered if the Agency had once cared about who they hurt. Likely not. After all, they only hurt the ‘bad guys,’ the ones hurting the innocent people. Such circumstances naturally justified inflicting pain in the Agency’s eyes. If there was evidence that proved it had ever been otherwise, Ceallach had yet to come across it.

No one noticed at first. Ceallach had suspected as much. Sterling wrecked things wherever he went; what was a little more damage here and there, a couple more casualties than usual? The additional expenses went down in the Agency’s account, and Sterling continued playing hero.

Ceallach knew a permanent bug would be noticed, but a tiny scoping drone could slip into Sterling’s apartments occasionally without being caught. She sent one in weekly, but heard nothing of interest until about four months into her little endeavor.

“Agent Sterling, this is getting out of hand.”

“I told you, they were alive when I left! I-”

“It was a solo mission, and there wasn’t any movement before you went in or after you got out. What am I supposed to believe, Lance?”

The frustration in the Director Jenkins’s voice was palpable. Ceallach could tell Sterling wasn’t simply another asset to this woman- he was someone she depended on, perhaps even a friend.

If Keller murdered the Director, would Sterling be hurt? Would it hurt more to watch her die, or simply hear the news? Would he suffer more from being there unable to help her, or from knowing the Director had been alone when she died?

Ceallach had seen them die, each and every one of her crew. Seen them burn and bleed. Some had gone quickly, but most were slow, so slow. The worst ones were those who hadn’t struggled, who had just lain there, waiting, until it all stopped.

She’d been tempted to stop, to wait until her life drained out, to join her crew.

It would hurt more if he was there in person, she decided. Jenkins seemed the best candidate at the moment, but Ceallach would keep alert for other possibilities.

“I didn’t do it. You know how I work, Joy.”

There was a pause. A sigh.

“I do, Lance. That’s the problem.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire thing spawned from a random thought I had: "If Killian was a girl, she wouldn't have been able to disguise herself as Lance with just the face mask thingy, so how would the whole revenge plot work?" Thus this fic was born.


	2. Chapter 2

Ceallach hadn’t anticipated Walter Beckett.

To be fair, it was hard to anticipate someone like Beckett. The man (was he old enough to be considered a man? With that face, it was impossible to tell) was committed to his ideal of nonviolence to the point of what she might’ve considered fanaticism before she’d seen what he was capable of. Simple enough to be nonviolent when you could _rewrite the human genome_. It was a shame someone of his talent had been wasted on the Agency.

His work was impressive, but what impressed Ceallach more about Beckett was his ability to work with Lance Sterling. He’d been the Agency’s gamble to keep Sterling in line. On overhearing that Mr. I-Fly-Solo had been assigned a partner, Ceallach had laughed. Whichever poor soul getting tethered to Sterling would inevitably be dragged along or cut loose. Sterling refused to play by anyone’s rules but his own. How could foisting some lab-coated goggle-wearer on him change that?

She’d kept laughing when she’d seen them in action, Beckett stumbling after Sterling with a pigeon following them both. Apparently the pigeon was Beckett’s ‘emotional support animal.’ Sterling despised the bird, which was a bonus.

She’d stopped laughing when Sterling threw his first grenade.

Her plan had hinged on Sterling destroying everything in his path, per the status quo. A bomb that rained glitter in the shape of a purring feline did not factor in whatsoever.

At first she’d assumed it a fluke. Sterling and his new partner(s) continued the mission, and she waited for her chance to slip in and cause additional damage, the kind that would eventually push the Agency to dismiss Sterling for his destructiveness.

After the glitter grenade, there were bubbles: ones that enveloped bullets and missiles and neutralized them. Then there was a gun, which got Ceallach’s hopes up until it shot a blanket. There was another thing that looked like a grenade, but acted more as a colorful flash bomb. There was a device that fired soundwaves, a pink goo that one of her scoping drones got trapped in, and something that exploded into dozens of plumes of rainbow-tinted smoke. These gadgets made somewhat of a mess, but not enough to cause any real damage. Certainly not enough to be lethal.

Ceallach kept watching, waiting, waiting for her chance to continue her sabotage. She watched as the duo succeeded with every mission given them. She watched as Beckett continued to navigate conflict without spilling a single drop of blood. She watched as _Lance Sterling,_ of all people, restrained himself from hurting anyone, following his partner’s lead.

She’d failed. She’d been doomed to do so the moment Beckett got involved, and the worst part was that the Lance Sterling she’d sought to hurt no longer existed. Oh, the man was still alive, but he’d _learned._ He’d _changed._ If she went up to him and reminded him of what he’d done, he’d apologize. Not just lip service, either- he’d genuinely regret it. This Lance Sterling knew that he hadn’t been a hero, but unfortunately for her, he was one now.

Ceallach hadn’t had any heroes in her tale. She’d never imagined that one would appear, nor that he would help the would-be hero become a true hero. She’d never imagined that someone like Walter Beckett existed, someone with ideals who could uphold them in the real world.

So now her story had a hero- heroes. And here she was, still playing the villain.

It had been different before. Before, Ceallach had thought everyone was equally scum in their own ways. She’d known that the only real difference between her and Sterling, her and the Agency, was the fact that they hid the ugliness of their actions behind the label of ‘justice.’ She’d been a villain in a story where there were only villains, they and the sheep that followed them.

Now Sterling was actually a decent person, working with a truly _good_ person, and Ceallach was still scum. Still a villain, slaughtering her kin and their sheep, with no one left who she cared about or who cared about her.

It was almost a relief when they caught her.

Ceallach would’ve killed Beckett. She’d had her hand around his neck. She’d squeezed, and squeezed, and would’ve kept squeezing, seeing skin bruise and feeling bone break and seeing the one truly good person she’d ever found choke and gasp and die.

“You don’t have to do this,” he’d managed as her fingers clutched his throat tighter. “It won’t make anything better.”

She’d known that. She’d known that even before, known that even if she managed to cut Sterling off from the Agency and kill them all nothing would be accomplished, not really. More scum would be dead, and the eel calling himself the hero would find her, the villain. Maybe he’d kill her, maybe she’d kill him. Scum killing scum, but there’d always be more scum in the world. That’s all the world was, death and dirt and darkness, violence and hurt and destruction, people following flawed heroes like sheep.

Except her theory had been disproved by glitter and bubbles and the man dying at her hand, and now she didn’t know what to do. What was there left to do?

“You are a good person,” she could’ve said. “You’re the only good person I’ve ever met on this stinking planet. I had friends, I had people I loved, but none of us were good. We all knew that. None of us were good. No one’s really good. Everyone wants to hurt and destroy and get even but you, you don’t. You want to help and heal and keep everyone safe.”

His eyes were so blue. The bloodshot whites of them only made the blue stand out brighter. He was so bright and good and everything around him was filthy, filthy, filthy. Sterling had been scum just like the rest of them, and now he was bright and good too, and she was dark and cold and empty and cruel.

“I don’t really want to kill you,” she wanted to say. “You’re good. You’re so good and kind and beautiful. You’re the only kind of person that really deserves to live.

I should’ve died with the rest of my crew.

But then what was the point of making it all this way? What’s the point of being good and kind and beautiful when the scum, the dirt, the filth can take it all away?

You’re the only good person I’ve ever met, and I’m going to kill you.”

She opened her mouth without knowing what she was going to say. She never found out.

There was a sudden pressure to the side of her neck, and her vision went black.


	3. Chapter 3

Beckett was kind to her, afterwards.

Ceallach didn’t know why she was surprised when Beckett came to her cell.

“I brought you something,” he said, and slid a package through the slot in the glass wall separating them.

She opened it. A mechanical arm sat inside. Five fingers, an elbow joint, a small black square at the wrist.

“That’s a watch,” he provided, pointing at the square helpfully. “There’s a button on the side that turns it on. It’s powered with atmospheric energy, so it doesn’t need batteries or anything.”

She put the arm on. It was comfortable, much more so than her old one. She flexed the fingers, and they moved smoothly, naturally, as if she’d grown them instead of putting them on like a glove.

“Lance told me you lost people in Kyrgyzstan,” Beckett added hesitantly. “Did he ever talk to you about that?”

He had. Sterling had come to her cell before Beckett had, apologized for the harm his actions had caused. He’d been obviously angry about her nearly murdering his partner, but the remorse for his actions hadn’t felt diminished by it- if anything, his guilt seemed intensified by it, his rage at her shadowed with frustration at his former, careless self. It had been disconcerting, seeing so closely the change that she’d witnessed from afar.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Beckett fiddled with his sleeve cuff. “How did you feel about that?”

“I still hate him.”

“I know you hate us, but-”

“Him. Not you. Him.”

Beckett blinked, straightening in his seat. “You don’t hate me?”

“No.”

“You tried to kill me.”

“Do you hate me?”

“Well, killing people isn’t-”

“Do you hate me,” she repeated. “At all?”

He frowned, brow creasing. “I don’t see the point. It doesn’t do any good to…I don’t like you, but that’s not the same as hating somebody.”

“There you have it.”

Beckett fidgeted, scratching the back of his neck. “Have what, now?”

“How can I hate someone who can’t even hate the person that tried to kill them?” she scoffed. “You’re a good person.”

“Lance is a-”

“Sterling is someone who spent his life playing at being a hero until you came along and actually made him one. He was never a good person, though I admit he’s become a better one.” Ceallach took a breath. “I’m not a good person. I’m not even trying to be, and you’re kind to me anyway.”

“Why should I be mean to you?”

She slammed her fist on the counter, wincing at the jolt of pain. “Because I tried to kill you, idiot! That’s how the world works- people hit you, you hit back harder. People hurt you, you hurt them back. People burn you, so you set the world on fire because all of them, every single one of them are scum!”

Beckett exhaled, and Ceallach realized he must’ve been holding his breath.

“Even the people you lost in Kyrgyzstan?” he asked quietly.

She laughed. “Especially them. We were all scum together, getting rid of the rest of the scum in our way.” She leaned back in her chair. “They were a bunch of bloody knobs. I miss them.”

Beckett smiled before glancing up at the clock on the opposite wall.

“Hey, I gotta go. Is there anything you want me to bring when I come back?” he questioned.

“Something to slit my other wrist with,” she was tempted to say. “Or anything else that’ll let me see my mates again.”

“Tim Tams would be nice,” she answered.

“Okay, sure. …What are Tim Tams?”

Beckett came back the next week with the candy bars she’d requested, and they talked. He left, and came back again the next week. Then the next, and the next, and the next.

At first their conversations followed the pattern of the first one- Beckett would approach with an offering: a random pigeon fact, a cute cat video, a prison-cleared gift. (“What’s wrong with the sequins on this notebook?” “Those are mermaid sequins. They’re reversible!”) He’d try to engage her in conversation. She’d play along, somewhat. (“You can write down your thoughts in it.” “Hm. …‘I want to stab Sterling’s eyes out with a needle.’” “Okay, just because you _can_ doesn’t mean you always _should_.”) Eventually he’d leave. Then he’d return, and the cycle would repeat.

On her birthday, Beckett brought her a flower. Ceallach was slightly put off by how pleased he looked with himself.

“Why are you smiling like that?”

He slipped the sweet-scented flora through the window slot. “Know what that is?”

“A flower. Presumably a birthday present.”

His grin widened. “It’s a calla lily.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s not how Ceallach is spelled, you know.”

He kept grinning.

She crushed the flower in her fist and slid it back through the slot.

Ceallach was startled by how hurt he looked.

“…Not a fan of flowers?” he asked sheepishly.

“Not a fan of puns.”

Beckett shrugged, his smile a bit forced. “Ah, okay. Sorry.”

He got up and walked off, leaving Ceallach with a splinter of guilt digging sharp in her gut.


	4. Chapter 4

It was over two months before Beckett came back.

Ceallach wasn’t certain if she was happy about his return. On one hand, she was pathetically relieved to see him again. On the other hand, his absence had rubbed her nerves raw. She’d grown suspicious of his previous visits while he’d been away. He himself had admitted he didn’t particularly like her, after all. Why would he keep coming back? Had he befriended her in order to abandon her, make her _feel_ her isolation? Did he grow her guilt so that she’d become compliant? Was Beckett just another villain playing at being a hero?

The worst part was she didn’t really care anymore. She’d long accepted the world was scum. If Beckett was scum too, well, that shouldn’t be such a surprise. But he’d at least pretended to care, and that was the closest to having a friend she’d gotten for over a decade. Ceallach was lonely, and tired, and past caring one whit about whether he had ulterior motives for seeking her company. She just wanted someone to talk to again, even if it was all fake.

Beckett slumped in his seat across from her. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards.

“Hey,” he said. “How have you been?”

Everything she wanted to say rose up in her throat all at once and choked her. She stayed silent.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Sorry for being away for so long. I was going to come back, but there was this business with nukes and…sorry. It’s just been crazy.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Beckett squinted at her. “What?”

“Why did you come back?”

He sighed again, so deeply she could see him deflate. “Are you still angry? I was trying to be nice with the calla lily thing, you know. I don’t know why it made you so mad, but I’m sorry.”

Ceallach grit her teeth. “Why’re you apologizing for the bloody flower? I- why do you keep visiting?”

He shrugged despondently. “I thought we could become friends.”

“Bull.”

“Oh, okay, so the last year was just bull? Good to know,” he spat.

Ceallach flinched, startled.

“You said you didn’t like me,” she shot back.

He stood up, pushing his chair back. “Yeah, because you tried to kill me!”

“So you do hate me?”

“What? No! I never-”

“Why are you pretending to be my friend anyway? What do you get out of it?”

“I dunno, maybe I was trying to be a friend to someone who doesn’t have any left!”

Tears pricked at her eyes. “I don’t need your pity, Beckett.”

“You lost people. You’re alone, and I thought-”

“You thought poor little broken me could be fixed with a few kind words? This must be such a disappointment for you.”

“I LOST SOMEONE TOO!” he screamed.

There was a minute, or an hour, or an eternity where they remained silent, staring at each other. Finally Beckett sat back down.

“I lost someone too,” he repeated, so quiet Ceallach could barely hear him. “My mom- she died, and then it was just me and Nana, and then Nana died, and I…I was alone for so long. I’ve been living by myself since high school. You know what I would’ve given for someone, anyone, to reach out to me, to be my friend? Don’t you understand?”

She did and she didn’t. When her crew died, Ceallach had been completely alone. No relatives, no friends, no one to reach out to. But she hadn’t wanted to reach out. She’d wanted to die, and then she’d just wanted to stay alone, and then she’d wanted to hurt, to kill, to destroy until everyone felt the same way she did.

“I’m not alone anymore,” he told her quietly. “But I still remember how it feels.”

Ceallach slipped her hand through the window slot. Beckett stared at it for a moment before setting his own hand on top of it.

“I might feel sorry for you if, you know, you hadn’t killed a bunch of people,” he remarked flatly, the corner of his lips twitching up. “But feeling alone like that…I didn’t like you, but I didn’t want you to feel like that. I don’t want anyone to feel like that.”

Ceallach studied his expression. “Didn’t? Past tense?”

“I kind of think of you as a friend now,” Beckett admitted. “I guess that’s weird, huh?”

She shrugged. “No weirder than coming back every week to visit someone who tried to kill you.”

Beckett laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed reading!


End file.
